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Guidelines

 

The following guidelines are intended to support students in developing a range of representations to develop and express their understandings.

  1. Provide clear prompts that help students identify their purpose, audiences, and ideas as well as their medium (or media) when they are developing their representations. Students should consider the following in the representing process:
  1. Model and discuss the representing process. Process is as important to representing as it is for the other language arts strands. Typically, the steps include:
    1. Planning and Focusing . Students must identify their purpose, audiences, and ideas as well as their medium.


      In an oral representation, students might consider:

      • Are there ideas or information that cannot be communicated in words, but can be communicated through movement, sounds, or images?
      • Are there ideas or information that need to be represented both orally and visually for emphasis?
      • Which kind of visual would be most effective or have the most appeal for the audience (e.g., graphics on overheads, gestures, slides, tableaux, charts, mime, costumes, symbols, or props)?
      • Does this representation clearly reflect my understanding?
      • Is this representation interesting or thought-provoking?

      In a print representation, students might consider:

      • Is the message as clear, concise, and complete as possible? Is it organized in a logical manner?
      • How can the reader best be drawn in and the reader’s attention held? What aural, visual, or oral elements can add to the interest level and effectiveness of the representation?
      • What information needs to be presented both in written and other forms for emphasis? What part of the representation could be supported by an image, a photograph, a picture, a graph, a chart, a table, a diagram, an illustration, a map or other form? Where are these forms best placed?
      • What headings and typeface would be best?
      • What would make the representation balanced and attractive? Do the important elements stand out? Are the elements arranged to direct the eye to a focal point? Does the relative size of the elements correspond to their importance? Is there consistency among the elements and print?

      In a multimedia representation, students might consider:

      • Which media are the appropriate media to reflect my understanding?
      • Which media will help most to clearly present the ideas in a lively and appealing way to the intended audiences? How will each serve the purpose of the representation?
      • How will each medium hold the audience’s interest, enhance learning, and increase understanding or enjoyment of the representation?
      • How can each medium help create a smooth and well-coordinated representation?
      • What materials, technology, or equipment are needed for the representation?
      • How can bombarding the audience with gimmicks and an unnecessary string of multimedia forms or effects be avoided?

    1. Designing and Producing . Students must organize and sequence their ideas and create a dynamic introduction, logical sequence, and strong conclusion. Designing a sequence using a flow chart or some other organizer helps students consider what will be seen and/or heard.
  1. Reworking and Presenting . Students must then review and revise their work. They will need to review, assess, and evaluate their representations for appeal to the intended audiences and consider how well-coordinated and effective their representations are. Students may need to confer and field test and make other arrangements for finalizing their representations. Ultimately, students will need to rehearse and present to determine if the representation has the desired effect on their audiences.

 

  1. Make students aware of the purpose and value of organizers for learning and communicating. The more students use both linguistic and visual organizers in the classroom, the more opportunity students have to learn effectively (Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock, 2001). Organizational tools can help students construct knowledge, sort information, remember ideas, and communicate their learning to others (Heryle, 1996). Students can use a variety of tools to explore what they know about a particular topic. Students can use concept maps, frames, grids, and text structure maps to identify key concepts. Some examples of organizers follow:

Storyboards are particularly useful for planning a slide-tape, drama, dance, video, or film representation. The traditional storyboard is drawn in panels that include a frame for a rough sketch of the shot accompanied by notes on the type of shot (e.g., L.S. [long shot], M.S.[medium shot], C.U.[close-up]) and the angle. Suggestions are also made for the sound track to accompany the shot and the length of the shot.

A variation of the traditional storyboard is planning each shot on a large index card using the following format (Thomas, 1988, p. 5):

The use of index cards allows students to experiment with the sequence of their shots and to easily add, delete, or revise their plans for a particular shot.

 

  1. Plan mini-lessons that introduce students to a range of visual and graphic aids that can be used in their representations. Students should consider using a visual or graphic aid when it is too difficult to describe something in words. Research suggests that many people are significantly better at processing visual information than verbal information and that they take in 75-80 percent of information presented to them through sight. These people learn better and more quickly if the information includes visual cues beyond traditional typography (Markel, 1998, p. 48). According to some research, visual and graphic aids can improve retention by up to 38 percent (Goldsborough, 1998). A visual aid might be a symbol, a graph, a chart, a table, a painting, a photograph, a cartoon, a three-dimensional model, or other representation.

Informational graphics (infographics) convey important information in a clear, precise, and efficient manner. They visually convey key data. Diagrams, pictures, charts, graphs, and maps are intended to communicate vital information. Some common visual and graphic aids are shown in the following chart.

 

Common Visual and Graphic Aids

Type

Purpose

Diagram (e.g., Venn, tree, labeled, scale, cutaway, cross-section)

To show the parts or workings of something

Other illustrations (e.g., painting, collage, drawing, poster, photograph)

To illustrate an idea

Chart (e.g., flow chart, table, matrix, timeline)

To present a set of facts or ideas in an organized way

Graph (e.g., bar, line, circle or pie, pictograph)

To show how certain facts are related

Map (e.g., bird’s eye-view, scale map or plan, typographic, road or street)

To show spatial relationships, location, distance, routes, and pathways

Three-dimensional (e.g., diorama, tableau, dance, mime, role play)

To portray an idea

 

Students should consider the elements that will represent students’ understanding most effectively, capture the attention of their audiences, increase the understanding and acceptance of the messages, and ensure that the messages are remembered. Effective visual and graphic aids:

 

To be effective, visual and graphic aids should be:

 

Students might begin exploring the basic principles behind effective representations that use visual and graphic aids. Students should consider the following questions:

 

Communication through visual and graphic aids is enhanced when students understand the elements and principles of visual design. Students should consider employing the principles of design including attending to focal point, colour, size, perspective, balance, and movement to make the message easy to grasp. Posters, book jackets, and print advertisements could be used to explore further the principles of design and layout.

 

  1. Help students understand the advantages and disadvantages of using technology to represent their understanding and communicate their messages. Students might make a computer-enhanced representationusing software such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Corel Draw, or Astound [www.spco.co]. Students can also communicate on-line. On-line communication requires well organized thoughts, key or concise messages, clear and compelling images, and convenient ways to retrieve and link information. Students must work with words, symbols, sounds, colours, and sequence or placement to communicate clearly and concisely on-line.

In addition to their purpose and audiences, students need to consider:

 

Students also might experiment with animation to highlight key points or to illustrate change, or with a video or audio clip to show how a product or process works. Students should be cautioned, however, about overusing computer or multimedia effects. Too much sound, animation, or video can distract from the main message.

 

  1. Students could begin exploring representing their ideas by using two media (e.g., an essay accompanied by a collage, a poem accompanied by a sound piece, or a tableau accompanied by audio clips of interviews) to explore or share ideas. In addition to attending to the content and language of the representation, students should consider their layout (including titles, bullets, borders, and backgrounds), typefaces (including type size, position, and the “personalities” of typefaces), sound (including environmental, voice, found objects, and music), and visual (including illustrations, three-dimensional objects, dance, and drama). Students should strive to make their representations clear and appealing to ensure maximum impact.

 

  1. A multimedia representation coordinates various media (e.g., print text, oral text, visual text, and aural text such as sound and music), to convey the message or idea.

Using a combination of media allows students to appeal to more than one of the audience’s senses. Students should be encouraged to choose the media carefully and to consider which media will clearly represent the ideas in a lively and appealing way for intended audiences. Students should consider the appeal that different media make to the senses and how each medium will serve the purpose. Some examples related to the five senses follow.

Sight: graphics, paintings, tableaux, mime, movement or dance, overhead projections, maps, charts, graphs, models, computer animation, film clips, symbols, slides, and other visual images

Sound: music, sound effects, taped speeches, book readings, and other audio

Touch: scale models, displays, sculptures, interactive computer programs, and other tactile forms

Smell: chemicals, perfumes, food, flowers, and other olfactory products or experiences

Taste: spices, food, drinks, and other gustatory experiences.

Multimedia representations allow students to incorporate movement, graphics, video, animation, objects, sound effects, music, and other forms into their representations.

 

  1. Adapting one medium to another allows students to understand the conventions and techniques used in different media. Students might try their hand at adapting narratives to dance, music, film, drama, or video. Students could consider what decisions the director must make about casting a character, handling characters’ thoughts, developing set, and creating dramatic effect.

 

Conclusion

 

The strand of representing gives teachers an opportunity to honour the learning styles of all students and to support students in broadening their learning styles. Open-ended assignments provide students with different learning styles opportunities to synthesize what they have learned and present their understanding in a variety of ways. For example, students in an English Language Arts B10 course could consider the following projects for the culmination of an Environment and Technology: Reality and Responsibility unit. See the following page.


 

 

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